Foote's discussion of the settlement of Rockbridge County

Rockbridge County, Virginia, received her first white inhabitants in the year 1737. In the fall of that year, Ephraim M'Dowell and his wife, both advanced in years, with their sons James and John and daughter Mary, and her husband James Greenlee, were on their way from Pennsylvania, the landing-place of emigrants from the British dominions, to Beverly's Manor. Whether the parents were born in Scotland, and in early life emigrated to Ulster County, Ireland, or whether Ireland was their birth-place, is left in doubt.

The advantageous offers made by Beverly to obtain settlers for his grant, in the frontier wilderness, were circulated in Pennsylvania, and not unknown in Europe. Allured by these, James M'Dowell the son, had in the preceding summer, visited the Valley of the Shenandoah, and raised a crop of corn on the South River. The family of emigrants winding their way to the provision thus made ready for their winter's support, had crossed the Blue Ridge at Wood's Gap, and were encamped on Linvel's Creek for the night. A man calling himself Benjamin Burden, presented himself at their encampment, and asking permission to pass the night in their company, was cheerfully made partaker of their food and fire. As the evening passed on in cheerful conversation, he informed the family that his residence was in Frederick County, where he had obtained a grant of land from the Governor, in the bounds claimed by Lord Fairfax, the Governor contending that the Blue Ridge was the western boundary, and Fairfax claiming the Alleghenies; that the Governor had promised him another grant of 100,000 acres, on the head waters of the James River, as soon as he would locate a hundred settlers; and that to induce settlers to locate on his expected grant, he would give to each of them one hundred acres of land, upon their building a cabin, with the privilege of buying as much more as he pleased up to a thousand acres, at the rate of fifty shillings the hundred acres.

In the course of the conversation, he learned that John M'Dowell had surveying instruments with him and could use them. After examining them carefully, he made propositions to M'Dowell to go with him and assist in laying off his tract, offering him, for his services a thousand acres, at his choice, for himself, and two hundred acres, each, for his father and brother and brother-in-law; for which he would make them a title as soon as the Governor gave him his patent; which would be when a hundred cabins were erected.

The next day John M'Dowell went with Mr. Burden to the house of Col. John Lewis, on Lewis Creek, near where Staunton now stands; and there the bargain was properly ratified. From Mr. Lewis's they went up the valley till they came to North River, a tributary of the James, which they mistook for the main river, and at the forks commenced running a line to lay off the proposed tract. M'Dowell chose for his residence the place now called the Red House'; the members of the family were located around, and cabins were built. The neighborhood was called Timber Ridge, from a circumstance which guided the location. This part of the valley, like that near the Potomac, was mostly destitute of trees, and covered with tall grass and pea-vines. The forest trees on this Ridge guided these pioneers in their choice and in the name. Burden succeeded in procuring the erection of ninety-two cabins in two years, and received his patent from the Governor bearing date, November 8th, 1739. This speculation, not being profitable, soon passed from the hands of the company, which was composed of Burden, Governor Gooch, William Robertson and others, and became the sole property of Mr. Burden.

This Benjamin Burden was an enterprising man from New Jersey. The records of the court, in the famous land case, arising from the grant, speak of him as a trader visiting extensively the frontiers. His activity, and enterprise, and success, enlisted the favor of the Governor, who was desirous of securing a line of settlements in towns or neighborhoods, west of the Blue Ridge, both to extend his province, increase the revenues, and render more secure the counties east of that Ridge; and he obtained a patent bearing date Oct. 3d, 1734, for a tract of land on Spout Run in Frederick County, called Burden's Manor. Tradition says, that a young buffalo, caught by him in Augusta in the Gap that still bears that name, and taken to Williamsburg as a present to the Governor, had some influence by its novel appearance, in calling the attention of Governor and Council to that part of the frontiers. The speculations entered into by the Governor, Burden, Robertson and others contemplated grants to the amount of 500,000 acres. Benjamin Burden died in 1742. His will bears date the 3d of April of that year, and was admitted to record in Frederick County. His widow gave her son Benjamin, power of attorney dated March 6th, 1744, to adjust all matters concerning the grant in Rockbridge.

At first from his youth and want of experience and ttie business habits of his father, the heir and agent was met with coldness and suspicion. But showing himself favorable to the inhabitants in not hastily demanding payments of debts; and granting some patents promised by his father, but for some reasons held back, he soon became very popular; married the widow of John M'Dowell, and lived on Timber Ridge till some time in 1753, when he fell victim to the small-pox, then infesting the country. His will bears date March 30th, 1753. He left two daughters; one died unmarried, the other, named Martha, married Robert Hervey. His widow married John Boyer and lived to a great age. Joseph Burden, a son of Benjamin the grantee, claimed, as heir under his father's will, part of the unsold lands in the Rockbridge grant, and commenced suit against Robert and Martha Hervey ; and dying in 1803, in Iredell County, North Carolina (his will bearing date April 29th,) left the suit to be carried on by his heirs. This suit was in court many years; and ultimately involved all the titles for land held under Burden's grant. The testimony and proceedings in the case, occupy two large thick folios preserved in the clerk's office at Staunton. The preceding history is taken principally from the testimony of Col. James M'Dowell, the grandson, and Mary Greenlee the sister of John M'Dowell, the surveyor of Burden's grant.

John M'Dowell made choice of a pleasant and fertile possession ; and in a few years left it to his heirs. In the latter part of December, 1743, the inhabitants of Timber Ridge were assembled at his dwelling, in mourning and alarm. To resist one of the murderous incursions of the Indians from Ohio, who could not yield the valley of the Shenandoah to the whites but with bloodshed, M'Dowell had rallied his neighbors. Not well skilled in savage warfare, the company fell into an ambush, at the junction of the North river and the James, on the place long in possession of the Paxton family, and at one fire, M'Dowell and eight of his companions fell dead. The Indians fled precipitately, in consequence probably of the unusual extent of their murderous success. The alarmed population gathered to the field of slaughter, thought more of the dead than of pursuing the savages, whom they supposed far on their way to the West, took the nine bloody corpses on horseback and laid them side by side near M'Dowell's dwelling, while they prepared their graves in overwhelming distress. Though mourning the loss of their leading man, and unacquainted with military manoeuvres on the frontiers, no one talked of abandoning possessions for which so high a price of blood was given in times of profound peace. In their sadness, the women were brave. Burying their dead with the solemnity of Christian rites, while the murderers escaped beyond the mountains ; men and women resolved to sow their fields, build their church, and lay their bodies on Timber Ridge. Strange inheritance of our race! Every advance in civil and religious liberty is bought with human life; every step has been tracked with human blood.

The burial-place of these men, the first perhaps of the Saxon race ever committed to the dust in Rockbridge County, you may find in a brick enclosure, on the west side of the road from Staunton to Lexington, near the Red-house, or Maryland tavern, the residence of M'Dowell. Entering the iron gate, and inclining to the left, about fifteen paces you will find a low unhewn limestone, about two feet in height, on which in rude letters by an unknown and unpractised hand, is the following inscription, next in age to the schoolmaster's memorial to his wife, in the grave-yard at Opecquon.

HEER LYES
THE BODY OF
JOHN MACK

DOWELL

DECED DECEMBE
1743

Mary Greenlee lived to a great age, and retained her memory, and spirit, and vivacity to the last, unharmed by the hardships and changes in life, from the time of an early disappointment in love, which gave a peculiar turn to the action of her mind, through the fatigues of emigration when twenty-six years of age, the labors of a new settlement, and some peculiar difficulties arising from her native shrewdness and many peculiarities. Endowed with powers of mind beyond the ordinary measure, and possessing great independence of character, she excited suspicious apprehensions among her more simple-minded neighbors, who believed, as was the fashion of the times, most devoutly in the existence of witches, and the power of witchcraft, to which many events were, by common consent, attributed. Happening one day, during a quilting at her house, to say, in a jocular manner, to a lady who had been very industrious, and whom she was pressing to eat more freely—" the mare that does double work should be best fed;" it was construed according to the mysterious jargon of the craft to mean—that she herself was a witch, and this woman the mare she rode in her nightly incursions. Some losses of stock occurred about the same time, as in the case of Mr. Craig, of the Triple Forks, and the slander was spread abroad with many additions. The indignation of the superstitious was aroused, and Mrs. Greenlee scarcely escaped a trial for witchcraft, according to the ancient laws of Virginia. In the famous trial between Burden's heirs, she underwent a long examination, testing her temper and her memory, in the April of 1806. In the midst of the examination, the question was put to her—" How old are you?" She smartly replied—"Ninety-five the 17th of this instant; — and why do you ask me my age? — do you think 1 am in my dotage?" Among other things in the course of the voluminous testimony taken in Burden's case, it is stated that an Irish girl, Peggy Miluollen, built a number of cabins, and entered them upon the list tor cabin rights; and managed the matter with adroitness above suspicion till long after the registry was made; thus accomplishing a double purpose, helping Mr. Burden to the requisite number of cabins for his grant, and herself to abundant landed possessions.

Ephraim M'Dowell and his wife were advanced in life when they came to America. Their son John emigrated a widower, and married a Miss Magdaline Woods. At his death he left her with three children, Samuel, James, and Martha. Samuel was Colonel of militia in the battle of Guilford, North Carolina. He married a Miss Mary McClung; his daughter Magdaline married Andrew Reid, son of Andrew and Mary Reid, of Rockfish, and father of Samuel M'Dowell Reid, the present Clerk of Rockbridge County. James married a Miss Cloyd, and died about 1770, aged thirty-five years, leaving three children, James, Sarah, and Betsy; James, the greatgrand-child of Ephraim, married Sarah Preston, grand-daughter of John Preston, the emigrant, was the father of the late Governor, James M'Dowell, and is the Colonel M'Dowell whose evidence in the case of Burden afforded in part the information respecting the early history of Rockbridge. Martha was married to Colonel George Moffitt, of Augusta, a gentleman much engaged in the Revolutionary war.

Retrieved from "https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Foote%27s_discussion_of_the_settlement_of_Rockbridge_County"

Category: Early Settlers of Old Augusta